Fast Innovation: Achieve Superior Differentiation, Speeds to Market, and Increased Profitability

by Michael L. George, James Works, Kimberly Watson-Hemphill

Overview

Michael George coaches CEOs and senior managers of Fortune 500 companies in proven strategies for using innovation to drive growth in shareholder value. In Fast Innovation, he teaches you how to achieve faster, more controllable time-to-market, how to reach a deeper understanding of customer needs, and how to create a culture that drives innovation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933309170
Publisher:	America Media International
Publication date:	05/25/2006
Edition description:	Abridged
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.30(d)

Table of Contents

	Foreword	ix
	Preface	x
Part I	An Executive's Guide to Fast Innovation
Chapter 1	Using Fast Innovation to Drive Organic Growth	3
	Innovation's Contribution to Organic Growth and Value Creation	5
	The Challenges of Sustained Growth	7
	The Fast Innovation Value Proposition	9
	Conclusion	13
Chapter 2	The Three Innovation Imperatives: Differentiated, Fast, Disruptive	15
Imperative #1	Differentiation	16
Imperative #2	Fast Time-to-Market	18
Imperative #3	Disruption	23
	The Power of Disruptive Innovation	27
	The Most Important Disruptive Innovation of the 20th Century	28
	Joining the Winning 10%: Being disruptive (even if based on sustaining innovations)	31
	Conclusion	33
	Spotlight on Customers and Differentiation	35
	Understanding the Heart of the Customer	38
Strategy #1	Develop strong links to both the core and fringes of your market	38
Strategy #2	Use ethnography to understand customer needs better than anyone else	41
	What's Really Different?	46
	A Look Ahead	47
Chapter 3	How to Become Fast	49
Prerequisite 1	Attacking the biggest drivers of innovation lead time	51
	The Law of Lead Time	51
	The Astounding Impact of Variation	54
	The Sources of Project Delays	56
	Meeting Project Schedules Despite Task-Time Variation	58
Prerequisite 2	Rapid Cycles of Learning Creates Differentiation	64
A	Ethnography	64
B	Rapid Prototyping	65
C	The Innovation Blitz	68
D	Flexible Performance Target Design	70
	Conclusion	71
Chapter 4	The Value of Thinking in Three Dimensions	73
Dimension 1	New Product/Service Innovation	74
Dimension 2	Market Definition Innovation	75
Dimension 3	Process/Business Model Innovation	78
	The Strong Advantage of Multidimensional Innovation	83
	Conclusion	89
Chapter 5	Open Innovation: Applying the Intellect of the Planet	93
	A Quick Look at the Closed Innovation Model	94
	Open Innovation Model	98
Open Innovation Case #1	Eli Lilly's web-based InnoCentive	99
Open Innovation Case #2	Procter & Gamble	104
Open Innovation Case #3	Intel's problem that required thousands of innovators	106
	The Future of "R" in Corporate R&D?	109
	Conclusion	111
Chapter 6	The Religion of Re-use	113
	Why Re-use?: To become faster and more differentiated	114
	Platforms and Operating Cost Efficiency: An organizing principle for re-use	116
	Overcoming Resistance to Re-use: A case study	120
	Using "External" Platforms to Capture Customers	124
	Conclusion	126
	Spotlight on Leading Innovation	131
	Disruptive Innovations Where CEO Presence Was Necessary	133
	Characteristics of an Innovation-Enabling Executive	136
	Defining the Burning Platform	138
	Recap of Fast Innovation	141
Part II	Building Corporate Innovation Capacity
	Introduction to Part II	147
Chapter 7	Foundations of an Innovation Factory	149
Foundation #1	Leadership courage and engagement	150
	Building Leadership Engagement	153
	How to get there: The executive retreat	154
Foundation #2	Business units capable of meeting the demands of Fast Innovation	156
1	Design/development groups (R&D)	156
2	Marketing/Strategy	158
3	Sales/Service	158
4	Operations	159
5	Finance	161
Foundation #3	Superior execution capability to deliver innovations	161
	Conclusion	164
	Spotlight on Conquering the Cost of Complexity	165
	The (Often Hidden) Impact of Complexity	168
	Conquering Complexity Accelerates Innovation	171
	Attacking Complexity	173
Chapter 8	The Executive Engine of Fast Innovation: Using a Chief Innovation Officer to Drive Results	177
	The Responsibilities of the Chief Innovation Officer	178
	Defining Innovation Goals and Metrics	182
	Funding Disruptive Innovation: Real Options Theory	186
	Real Options Theory	188
	Conclusion	191
Chapter 9	Becoming Customer Driven	193
	Using Customer Knowledge Throughout the Design Process	194
	A Case Study in VOC	197
	VOC Translation Tools (Design for Lean Six Sigma)	202
	Increasing Trust in Your VOC	212
	Conclusion	213
	Spotlight on Creating an Idea-Rich Environment	215
1	Raise awareness of innovation opportunities	215
2	Create an Idea Forum	216
Chapter 10	Fast and Flexible: The New Corporate Mantra for Design Work	219
	Flexible Performance Targets: How to be creative without sacrificing lead time	221
	Designing to Flexible Performance Targets	222
	Conclusion	233
Chapter 11	Institutionalizing Re-use	235
	The Many Faces of Re-use	235
	Re-use and Innovation by Analogy	236
	Re-use and Best Practices	237
	Re-use and Channels	238
	Re-use and Intangible Products	238
	Re-use Resistance (and How to Overcome It)	240
Argument #1	Developing re-usable designs is too expensive	241
Argument #2	"I'm a creator, not a re-user"	242
	Other Ways to Facilitate Re-use	243
	Conclusion	244
	Part II Conclusion	246
Part III	Deploying Fast Innovation Projects
	Introduction to Part III	248
Chapter 12	Project Screening and Selection	249
	Identifying Opportunities	250
	Managing Sustaining vs. Disruptive Evaluation Processes	251
	Screening Ideas at the Business Unit Level	253
Screen #1	Rough "go/no-go" filter	253
Screen #2	Composite scores on attractiveness and effort	254
Screen #3	Business case development and project selection	257
	Hold Off on That Launch!	259
Chapter 13	Increasing Innovation Capacity Without Adding Resources	261
	Gathering the Necessary Data	264
Step 1	Categorize your developers' activities	264
Step 2	Gather time data	265
	Optimizing Utilization: A case study	267
	Multi-Tasking Harms Creativity	271
	Attacking the Causes of Multi-tasking	272
	Conclusion	275
	Spotlight on The Innovation Blitz	277
	Traditional vs. Blitz Model: Trench warfare vs. a lightning attack?	278
	Using the Blitz approach	279
Chapter 14	The FastGate Method: How to Control Innovation Lead Time	283
	FastGate, Feedback and Critical Resources	284
	The FastGate Method for Innovation Project Management	287
	Making the Initial Adjustments	288
	Ongoing Use of FastGate Reviews	290
	Tracking Project Performance	291
	Oregon Productivity Matrix	293
	Conclusion	295
Chapter 15	Creating Innovation Incubators: How to Catalyze Creativity on Your Teams	297
	Becoming a Catalyst for Creativity	299
1	Immerse team members in customer knowledge and other background	300
2	Make the problem difficult and specific	300
3	Push the boundaries in brainstorming	302
4	Help (or even force) people to think in new ways	303
5	Look at the whole value stream; keep their minds open to all steps	307
6	Allow space for thinking/ruminating	307
	Conclusion	308
	Recap of Part III	309
Appendix 1	The Impact of Task Variation and Utilization on Lead Time	311
Appendix 2	Time Buffers and Feedback Systems	321
Appendix 3	Innovation and Information Creation	326
	Index	328